fifteenkey

Blackest of Friday's at Wal-Mart

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 02:32:00 +0000

Some shoppers didn't get the message about "Buy Nothing Day" and in pre-dawn darkness, a temporary worker at a Wal-Mart died in a 5AM stampede of consumerism.

"Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him."- The New York Times

Gonna have to face it, you�re addicted to stuff�

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:24:00 +0000

If you are what you buy, today I am nothing. I�m sorry if I got to you too late. Too late to save you from the 5am line at Best Buy to pick up that Wii or sitting there, credit card in trembling hand gobbling up the �Black Friday� deals corporate America tells us we cannot miss. The trembling is nagging doubt of whether you can pay the January Visa bill.

For some, me included, today is �Buy Nothing Day,� although I�m finding it�s not easy to thwart the crashing waves of advertising from TV, radio and my inbox. Kyle wants an iPod for Christmas and I�ve learned in about 14 different ways that apple.com is matching competitor pricing today� That�s not exactly true, but I can save $11 on an 8G iPod nano today� I�d still be out $138, but I�d �save� $11.

The sentiment of �Buy Nothing Day� is dismissed by many as �Un-American,� and I suppose it is. It challenges our unquenchable desire to consume and that hot desire has been programmed into us Orwellian style. �Big Brother� has been overtly and subliminally telling us to buy forever. Nearly all information provided to the American public is supported by endless messaging telling us to buy stuff.

Not today.

Thinksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:06:00 +0000

Six point five percent doesn�t sound so bad unless you�re one of the one million, two-hundred thousand Americans who lost their jobs in the first ten months of 2008. For many of them, today will bring a smaller turkey, turkey at a soup kitchen or no turkey at all. Downshifting is �un-American.� The thought of less strikes at the angry core of �manhood:�

Molly Brown: Hey, uh, who thought of the name Titanic? Was it you, Bruce?
Ismay: Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size, and size means stability, luxury, and above all, strength.
Rose: Do you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismay? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you.

A smaller bird will be ego crushing to many, but today we'll waste enough food to feed millions of less fortunate. Our preoccupation with size explains the Hummer and the �Code Blue� status of General Motors. Our capitalist obsession with growth and ever-increasing profit is collapsing our economy and our 401K�s are at the bottom of the rubble.

The mother of my children had a saying that I recall after an intense bout of marital mayhem: �Where do we grow from here?� After recently blogging, �we need to devise a system that moves us back to more local, sustainable economies,� I�ve discovered the concept of the �steady-state economy.� I have much more study to do on it, and Thanksgiving isn�t the day to dwell on it. I will say the growth we need is inward...

Recently I suggested to Megan and Kyle this year�s Christmas would be less �material� than previous years. I asked them to think about what they really want and that I�d �try� to fulfill that request, but that there would not be much beyond that. I explained that the economy was bad and I wanted to conserve our money in case things got worse. I think the imprecision of my reasoning scared Kyle who blurted out, �This is going to be the worst Christmas ever!� My ghosts of Christmas past include the first waking in a place without them, Megan not being home one year, and Kyle struggling with walking last. After putting things in some context, my boy was fine. I think he is starting to understand it�s just stuff and our happiness has very little to do with it.

Happy Thanksgiving.

�Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave ... One piece of good sense is more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.�

- Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Ridin� the Storm Out

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:14:00 +0000

Yeah, it�s a cheesy REO Speedwagon song title, but it does capture my current Smartphone dilemma. My �Jack Bauer� Treo is in reruns and the only way it will charge is slowly via its USB �Hotsync� cable. That�s fine when my computer is nearby. (Oh, nevermind. That�s always.), but a couple weekends ago when Kyle and I hit Gotham, I had to lug my laptop along just to trickle the Treo (that sounds dirty) with electricity.

Any cell phone decision is at least influenced, if not coercively controlled, by your carrier of choice, Verizon in my case. They make it difficult and expensive to extract yourself from their 100 year commitments, and therefore thorny for me to bolt for an iPhone and AT&T. (The side-story is that Apple gave Verizon first dibs, but they couldn�t reach agreement� probably because �the network� probably wanted to kill the wi-fi capability in the new son of Jobs�)

So as I trickle my Treo, I suffer silently the indignity of snickers and sneers from the Blackberry mob at work and empathy from the few, daring iPhone users behind the corporate iron curtain. I like my LeoTreo. The phone works great, getting work email works fine most of the time, but the browser is a bowser and um, since I don�t really like talking to people on the phone, the internet experience is pretty high on my features list. That�s where the iPhone shines for me, especially the part where you can turn it on its side and the �accelerometer� turns all iWideScreen. That�s cool, but it�s on AT&T, an inferior network to Verizon...

My hopes were high for the new Treo 800w to be released on Verizon, but sadly the fast little Windows Mobile unit doesn�t run on Verizon. It Sprints. Don�t even bring up the Palm Centro. Jack would rather be killed by terrorists than use that toy. From my clouds of disappointment a Storm began to form, and over the past ten weeks or so, I�ve been mercilessly teased by Research In Motion and Verizon about the Blackberry Storm. Now my pal Jeffro swears by his BB after years on a Treo. �It just works,� says Jeff, but he�s geekier than me for gadgets, loves his music, and lusts after an iPhone. Still, if our President-Elect can be Blackberry addicted, that�s cool enough for me.

Yesterday the so called �iKiller� Storm hit the shore, so after work I washed up to the local Verizon brick �n mortar to find out sold out was my out. I did get to play with a live one for about 30 minutes, mostly with the virtual keyboard, email and browser and testing the �accelerometer.� My hands on experience left me only B-List dazzled, like seeing Jennifer Aniston instead of Angelina Jolie. It was pretty hot, but a clumsy keyboard experience and a sluggish �accelerometer� give me pause to make sure they can fix stuff with software updates and be certain there are no hardware issues in these early models. Besides, they won�t have any more in stock until December 5th. That will give me time to get my hands on an iPhone demo.

Capitalism�s Chapter 11

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:08:00 +0000

It turns out Gordon Gecko was wrong. Greed is not good. The constant pressure for growth and higher profit has bankrupted us in many ways:

Health technology and pharmaceutical companies contribute to an obscenely expensive health care system that's unaffordable to millions.
Our military-industrial complex drive for higher revenues and profits fuels world conflict and warps our foreign policy.
The financial and political power of oil companies keeps us dependent on petroleum and the Middle-East.
Giant media conglomerates control the message and craft it to sustain the status quo and maximize profit.
The pressure for short-term profits moved the US automakers to produce Escalades and Hummers and now the market is looking to run them down like Biff Tannen gunning for Marty McFly in �Back to the Future.�
Finally, our financial institutions are teetering because they supplied all of us the crack of cheap credit, but now since they �cut� their product so much, it�s diluted to the point we can no longer get high off the fake financial "reality" it provided.

I can't say I have a solution to any of this...yet, but we need to start right at the core and address our economic system. I have my doubts whether we can sustain the infinite growth capitalism requires; certainly not at an accelerating pace. On a very basic level, the planet cannot support it, so we need to devise a system that moves us back to more local, sustainable economies and away from giant corporations feeding us Big Bombs, Big Hemi's, Big Macs, Big Brother on Big Screens, and a Big Gulp to wash down big handfuls of Prozac so we can deal with it all.

It�s a Small World After All�

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:56:00 +0000

Sorry if I just put that ditty back in your head. I know it�s tough to evict from the mind�
Counting tourists, there are over 1.7M people in Manhattan at any given time, and yesterday Kyle and his dad were approximately 1/10,000 percent of them.

The trip down Saturday morning had some classic Kyle moments. My boy has a wonderful sense of humor and great comic timing. A sampling:

Dad: �I can't believe my boy is going to be 17...�
Kyle: �I know.�
Dad: �That's old.�
Kyle: �No it isn't, Dad!�
(About a 1.4375 second pause�)
Kyle: �50 is old.�
(laughter)

After about 2 hours of the �Mary Poppins� London soundtrack, I took control and played some Frank for the boy. I�m hoping some exposure to the Jersey boy will get Kyle interested in singing something besides Celine Dion songs� Anyway, after I joined Frank to belt out New York. New York, I asked Kyle what he thought. �You were good, but I didn't like you.� �What? What kind of answer is that?� I playfully demanded.� �That's what Simon said on �American Idol�� came a smiling explanation from Kyle.

After slogging around square, wet blocks for a few hours, we taxied it to dinner at a very eclectic Italian place at 58th and 3rd. Imagine my surprise when I saw tripe, calves liver and saut�ed sweetbreads on the menu with Mr. Olive Garden sitting across the table. We ended up with satisfactory meals and headed back out on the mean streets toward the Great White Way.

The after-dinner walk weather was dry and around 60 degrees, but a fog covered the city building tops like foam on a cappuccino. The Daley boys were strolling South on Park Avenue toward 52nd when we heard a female voice exclaim, �Hey guys!� We looked up to see the beaming face of Kyle�s Neurologist, Christie Stine and her husband. She happily explained, �this is the famous Kyle� from YouTube with Jaws. They were in town for the matinee at the Met and were also walking off dinner. It was great to see her, but we had to come clean and tell her all the �Harry Potter� dragons she sent Kyle for Christmas last year now reside in Jaws mouth. We chatted for a good 15 minutes and then were off to the Winter Garden Theatre.

The rest of our walk was pretty quiet. I was thinking about how Dr. Christie and Dr. Maddy (Martin) had saved my son. Maybe Kyle was thinking about that too�

�It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all�

Written by: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman

Mamma Mia, here I go again�

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:15:00 +0000

At year 3, a trip to New York City is becoming a birthday tradition for Mr. Kyle Daley. The boy really wants for nothing and he loves Manhattan and Broadway, so Dad antes up. Last years itinerary included Novotel, The Olive Garden and �Mary Poppins,� and this year it�s the Grand Hyatt and �Mamma Mia,� with another big difference being the Pierce Brosnan character in the stage musical will be able to sing. Oh, I kid Pierce Brosnan and give him props for having the courage to try that demanding role. Anyway, I thought an Olive Garden sequel would be automatic this year, but birthday boy is undecided. Sparks Steak House would rock for me, but Kyle will have to be �the decider� on that.

I�m very fortunate to be able to do this for my son, and in this month of thanksgiving, lets give some. First off, if not for Kyle mom, the fabulous Gigi, I would not be writing this or going to New York. Over twenty years ago I was working on a factory floor at NEC and pursuing my first �white collar� job. When the hiring manager changed the interview time at the last minute, I copped an attitude (no, really) that they were simply exercising formality and I had no shot at the job. I wanted to bag the interview, but my wife encouraged me to go�

I got the job and had the good fortune to work for a guy named Steve Cousins for the next 13 years. He was a great boss and one of many who helped push my career. When my NEC gig ended in 2000, I was helped by an NEC friend, Tom Kimmel, to land a great position with Kronos, where Pete Broderick listed his priorities for me as family, personal development and professional achievement, in that order. Then he lived up to them. After that it gets a little blurry by the pace of change. So there was Peter, Paul and Barb, who talked me off a professional ledge and became mentor and friend. She�s one of the smartest people I know and has the best perspective of anyone I know. After that I bounced between a couple guys before being inherited by Joyce Maroney on September 11, 2006. She�s smart and fun and supportive, just like most of my bosses have been. For all the people we hear whining about their job, for the most part, I�ve not been one of them for over twenty years. How lucky is that?

Thank you all. Now I have a train to catch!

You can Read it in the Wednesday Papers!

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:39:00 +0000

Like many, my mom has saved some �historic� front pages over the years, typically of our home town Boston Globe. While Mom may not like it, there was a keeper on Wednesday and this incredible compilation provides the splash from all over the world� Enjoy!

Purple Reign

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:42:00 +0000

Last night, Barack Hussein Obama earned enough votes to be elected our 44th President of the United States. His victory, and the number of white votes that secured it, is one of the proudest moments I�ve experienced in my half-century as an American. However, with the amount of hate I�ve read in the blogosphere since, I have no illusions that our nation will now enjoy some unified renaissance, but now we have some hope that we can. Yes, we can.

Many of President-Elect Obama�s critics cited �inexperience� as a primary reason to oppose his candidacy, but if leadership, proper judgment, and the ability to strategize and execute are job requirements, doesn�t his historic campaign and victory repeal that rationale?

Whether you voted for Barack Obama, John McCain or wrote in Ron Paul, a brilliant chapter in American history was started last night, and a page was turned on a �conservative� movement that lost its way under George W. Bush. For a movement launched with a �less government� mantra, the Bush years have crumbled that pillar and more than doubled our national debt to nearly $11T dollars in 8 years of record oil profits, war profits and healthcare profits pushing care further from the reach of too many Americans.

The challenges facing our country are epic, but with the spirit and energy I saw all across half our country last night, I am confident we can overcome. The biggest challenge however, isn�t Iraq, or terrorism, or energy or even the financial crisis. The challenge for Barack Obama is to overcome the color barriers that hold us back. Those colors aren�t black and white; they�re red and blue, and unless Barack Obama can skillfully blend them on our American palette, the hope for a better America and a better world will have been nothing more than a passing dream.

My hope is that reaching across the aisle for some brilliant American Red begins today.

I like Surrealism

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:03:00 +0000

This moment brought tears to my eyes... What a great moment for our country.

Election Day

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:37:00 +0000

I've been waiting a long time to do that.

Sloan While We Wait...

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:44:00 +0000

I'm sitting outside Kyle's high school waiting for him to get out a Halloween movie. His mom is home worried. Tonight is Kyle's first night out without Mom or Dad. Ever. The sound of the Bruins game is my company for the wait. They're in Calgary. During a break, I heard Sloan. They play Sloan during breaks of Calgary Flames games. That's cool...

Mmmm....

OK, it's 9:33... Where's my boy?

Red State Blues

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 17:40:00 +0000

Less than two weeks before the biggest election of my lifetime, I got a tour of Sarah Palin�s �Real America.� In rural, Central Florida the �McCain-Palin� signs outnumber �Obama-Biden� by about 50-1 and add color to a flat, dead landscape of mildewed trailer parks, crumbling buildings and rusted old Chevy lawn ornaments in many front yards.

The dirty, 1950�s storefronts advertise cheap smokes and even cheaper beer. The corporate mass-produced products of slow death numb whatever senses these �real� Americans have left. That and God. The only buildings that stand out here are the churches, and they are largely of the evangelical variety, dominating Catholic houses of worship in numbers similar to what the Republicans enjoy. �What opportunity do people have when they�re born here?� I rhetorically asked my dad. �Not much,� he replied. I assume a military �career� at one end of a gun barrel must look pretty good to young men or women staring down a barrel of emptiness in places like Lake County, FL. These are the kids sent to fight neocon wars and flag-draped �thank you�s� are marketed as �heroic� instead of what they are: exploited.

After touring the still heart of blood red Florida, it�s no mystery why they vote Republican. They�re still living in the glorious post-WWII 1950�s, a time when their cheap labor was the only available and the asbestos factory was at full capacity. Now the factories exploit Chinese workers and asbestos kills those first shift workers who now lack health benefits. Since then, local schools and dominating churches continue to mold young minds to believe in an infallible America and the vital national importance of banning gay marriage. The ignorance bred red also makes these �real� Americans fearful of what�s different, including a middle name of �Hussein.� It�s no wonder Republicans shred education budgets.

Sadly, most of the people living in the rural towns of counties like Lake and Volusia in Florida long for a time that�s never coming back, and some despicable Republican strategists steal their votes by telling them it will.

Mr. Glass Half-Full

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:32:00 +0000

I�m not crazy about heights, in fact terrified would nail it, yet staring down on a life fifty years in the making is serene. Sure, it�s strewn with a few big rocks and some regrets, but there�s beauty down there too. Today marks my fiftieth anniversary of October twentieth, and Saturday we celebrated Madison�s first. She�s actually was the BIG ONE yesterday, but really, she didn�t know. In fact, I selfishly believe her 10 minutes on the porch wrapped in a blanket with her Papi, were her best of the day. Inside was the din of 25 people talking at once. Outside was fresh air, peaking colors and quiet love. Maddy cried when I moved toward the door, but there were presents to open and chocolate cake to smear in her silky blonde hair.

Madison�s mom is semi-smooth diamond formed over nearly 20 of my years. I am so proud of the mother she is. About this time last year priorities proposed were a new baby and continuing education. Megan is a natural with Maddy and she�s enjoying and excelling in school. For extra credit she�s a wonderful, pain in the ass sister to Kyle and a loving �Mom� to her niece MacKenzie. I�m pretty demanding on my girl, but she�s one jewel I want to see sparkle at full potential. Since she�s got the whole, smart, funny and beautiful thing going on, my Megan should have a shining life.

Speaking of shine, no one I know radiates love like Mr. Kyle Daley. I know a �song in his heart� is trite clich�, but anyone who knows Kyle realizes �his heart will go on� because of the love and songs in it. To see Kyle doting on his 87 year old grandmother or baby Maddy is to see the actions of a young man who makes the world a better place. Kyle�s also a pretty funny guy with a sense for comedy and timing. He also does some great impressions of his favorite movie characters. Actor, singer, comic� Kyle does it all.

Today I�ll begin the end of the work that has consumed much of my favorite month. It�s been a rewarding effort, and I know there are people who truly appreciate it. In times like these, coaxing a smile or laugh from a concerned face is more satisfying than ever. I guess that�s the gift of my life. Like Megan, I think I have my priorities in order, but like Kyle, I live a life with a soundtrack and always look for the one liner that might shine a little light. Yep. I�m just �Mr. Glass Half-Full.�

Death as Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:20:00 +0000

The impressions of Fall blaze a great canvas staring down from a thousand feet, but only for a few last breezes before the crisp descent of the end. As the chlorophyll drains, the drying diffuses into firey red, yellow and orange like an explosion of Fruit Loops over an evergreen pitch.

The Bathroom Brush By

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:34:00 +0000

It happens every weekday in corporate America with d�j� vu-like time precision. As focus shifts silently from intellectual (probably too strong a word) to biological, the office is exited, GPS* kicks in, and a biological mission commences. It�s an efficient, repeatable process, a um, flowchart if you will... Head down. Determined. Like a subway car on rails. No turns allowed.

This unconscious route execution allows the conscious mind to continue jumbling things like a rat bouncing on a circular treadmill after succumbing to exhaustion.

Occasionally, an interruption delays the void, often just as the �swing open bathroom door� task is about to be executed. This process deviation is startling and causes the screeching brakes of the subway car to engage, cratering cranial operations to near shutdown. It is at this point when visual systems connect and sort of a whispered, barely audible, �scuse me�� trails off to silence and visual connection trickles to a stop. The Bathroom Brush By is a strange ritual and impacts almost every traveling unit the same way. The phenomena is a combination of the system drain and a, �I know what you were just doing and you know what I�m about to do and that�s really more than either of us can handle right now� kinda thing.

Do you experience the Bathroom Brush By?

* Global Peeing System

�Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.�

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:24:00 +0000

Paul Newman spoke those words in the classic, �Cool Hand Luke.� �Luke� wasn�t my favorite Newman film; not with his classics like �The Hustler,� The Sting,� �Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,� and of course, �Slap Shot.� While his role as �celluloid hero� offers immortality, �Newman�s Own� is his real gift to many.

That 1982 venture with neighbor and writer A.E. Hotchner has grown to a huge charitable enterprise, and donates ALL of its profits to charities. As of 2007, those donated profits totaled $175 million.

Yesterday I asked the mother of my children about the �Newman�s Own� coffee she was sipping. �It�s delicious.� We went on to chat a bit more about his products and charitable mission. �I think he�s going to die soon,� I said.

�You know, when I was a kid,
I always thought I'd grow up to be a hero.�
� Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy

The Eye of the Mouse

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Rather than cite sources that will be dismissed as �liberal-left media,� I'll use FoxNews's focus group queried by GOP pollster Frank Luntz. The group of Nevada independents gave the debate edge to Barack Obama.

What I saw was a draw with two candidates holding their own on the issues. Here's what else I saw:

Barack Obama spoke directly and respectfully to Sen. McCain and the American people in a knowledgeable, intelligent and charismatic way.
John McCain, who didn't have the decency to even look at his opponent, came across as angry, gruff, and unpresidential.

For Senator McCain to promote himself as a �Maverick� that can �reach across the aisle,� to Democrats in a bipartisan way, it�s strange he couldn�t even look across the aisle last night in front of the whole country. Not looking an opponent in the eye is a sign of fear. Might John McCain be intimidated by Barack Obama?

We'll see how their performances are reflected in the polls.

Speaking of polls, the House Republicans against the Bush administrations Wall Street bailout plan are largely playing election year politics. They are facing a wave of anti-Bush sentiment in their home district races and this gives them one last gasp at an issue they can play up to the home voters:

�We didn't cave to Bush or Wall Street.�

That's the game. Hopefully, enough voters will be sophisticated enough to see through the ruse and see these hypocrites who gave Bush everything he wanted for 8 years are now putting �Politics First� in an effort to save their careers. And they're risking a collapse of our economy doing it.

Capitalist Terrorism

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:48:00 +0000

Just like an episode ending cliffhanger of �24,� we�re huddled together in a room hog-tied (sans lipstick) and blindfolded. We�re hostages. The stolen suitcase bombs are strategically placed for maximum destruction, and the red neon numbers dance toward a vaporizing of all within their blast radius. The suitcase �weapons of mass destruction� as described by Warren Buffett, are filled with toxic debt instruments; the ransom is $700 Billion Dollars, and if we don�t pay it, capitalist terrorists will allow the clock to run out and watch the pancaking of our economy from lower Manhattan penthouses.

The government of course is led by an inept president, and many in congress are united by fear and by terrorist infiltrators whispering the corporate slogan, �just do it.� There�s fear in the air and the drumbeat to deliver �shock and awe� to our financial system is heightening. Today, history provides 4,161 reasons why we should have slowed down prior to invading Iraq, and the magnitude of our financial crisis demands we think this through.

Paying the ransom as currently constituted will transfer a minimum of $700B of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street firms, and nothing to individuals and small businesses preyed upon by them. Just this morning, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is dismissing Democratic efforts to aid households as part of the bailout bill. �We need this to be clean and to be quick,� Paulson said in an interview on ABC's �This Week.� This episode of �24� is brought to you by Goldman Sachs, the firm Mr. Paulson formerly led. In a case of naked corporate nepotism, Mr. Paulson actually gets to act in the episode, and is serviceable as the clich� �Fox in the Henhouse.� Many of these people the administration wants to leave in the burning towers were put there by the marketing efforts and slick sales pitches of the builders, and many of them weren�t educated enough to save themselves. I�ve seen it. My daughter hasn�t graduated high school yet, but she receives 1-2 credit card solicitations a week. Just try it� you won�t get hooked.

Of course, the terrorists control the weapons, so any delay in the Bush administration�s �clean and quick� plan will be met by frantic Wall Street selling tomorrow and a ratcheting up of fear, another post-9/11 tactic that swayed public opinion toward war. The men calling for the ransom to be paid and threatening dire consequences if it isn�t, built empires on leveraging leverage and personally profited obscene numbers while doing it. In 2006, Wall Street firms paid $33.9 Billion in bonuses alone. 2007 was an �off� year, and the bonus pool shrank to $33.2 Billion, or $180,420 per employee. The combined $67.1B is nearly 10% of the bailout price tag, and these giants of capitalism stuffed their personal piggy banks with it in just 2 years. We don�t know all of their names, but we know a few of the alleged leaders and their 2007 compensation for helping to get us here:

Martin Sullivan � former Chairman and CEO of AIG - $14.3 Million
James Cayne � former Chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns - $38.3 Million
Kenneth Lewis - Chairman and CEO of Bank of America - $24.8 Million
Daniel Mudd - former CEO of Fannie Mae - $11.6 Million
Richard Syron - former Chairman and CEO of Freddie Mac - $18.3 Million
Lloyd Blankfein - Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group - $68.5 Million
Richard Fuld, Jr. - Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers - $34.4 Million
John Thain - CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. - $17.3 Million
E. Stanley O�Neil � former CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. - $24.3 Million
Angelo Mozilo - founder and former CEO at Countrywide Financial Corp. $122 Million in stock options alone.

Will any of these �perps� be held responsible? Will homeowners be helped as part of Bush�s bailout? Will the American terrorists allow the clock to run out? Tune in tomorrow to see if anything remains ticking.

Tick� Tick� Tick�

No Deal or No Deal?

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:27:00 +0000

The blue ticker says �Deal or No Deal,� but it�s been preempted for a CNBC special on our nation�s latest financial crisis. Electronic voyeurs fix emotionless on employees leaving Manhattan towers with their office belongings. Reality TV. As 158 year old Lehman Brothers stands on the cliff of bankruptcy, insurance giant American International Group struggles to find capital and restore investor confidence, and Merrill Lynch desperately seeks a buyer for itself, tomorrow may go down as an infamous "Black Monday" on Wall Street. Lehman and Merrill Lynch gone in a weekend... Before tonight, that was unthinkable.

I have no idea how these financial black holes will impact the day to day of American businesses, but as they suck available capital and again shock the confidence of American consumers, it cannot be good.

So how did we get here? Well, some blame can be um, leveraged on John McCain's primary financial advisor, Phil Gramm, he of the �nation of whiners� comment who sponsored the deregulation responsible for much of the speculation that depression-era legislation was designed to limit. The Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933 to address the rubble of a large portion of the American commercial banking system that collapsed from over-speculation.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 repealed Glass-Steagall and in the opinion of some economists, contributed to the risk driven subprime mortgage crisis which has now snowballed into a full-fledged financial system crisis. The Gramm law has been described as "corporate welfare for financial institutions and a moral hazard that will make taxpayers pay dearly."

Oh, here�s how the voting went on Gramm-Leach-Bliley:

53 Republican Senators including John McCain - AYE
44 Democrats no Republicans - NAY

Are these the guys we want running our country?

The Elephant in the Room

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:22:00 +0000

Barack Obama is a black man with a Muslim middle name and he�s smarter than you.

Get ready for the onslaught of coded racism and xenophobia that will make the �Swift-boating� of John Kerry look like an afternoon sail off Martha�s Vineyard.

It�s already happening. When Sean Hannity of Faux noise often spews, �Barack Hussein Obama,� he�s implying Obama is somehow a covert Muslim. Of course, let�s not forget their describing Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama," a term used to describe unwed mothers. I don�t think Faux used that one on Gov. Palin�s daughter�

Then there�s Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) recently using �elitist-class� (smart) and the racially-loaded term �uppity� to describe Sen. Obama: �Just from what little I�ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they�re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they�re uppity,� When astonished reporters asked him to clarify his use of �uppity,� Westmoreland said, �Uppity, yeah.� Behind closed doors, I�m sure he adds the noun.

The right has some history here. In the 1988 presidential election, I was leaning toward voting for George H.W. Bush until his campaign used the despicable �Willie Horton� ad against Michael Dukakis. I could not support a candidate that allowed racial smearing.

We have time for another example, right? In 2006, Republicans smeared Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, a black man, with an ad featuring a white woman saying she had met Rep. Ford at a �Playboy party.� Get it? Black man � White woman � Playboy Party�Sex! Ford lost the tight Senate, um, race.

The wheels of the Repugnantan slime machine are cranking right now and I expect that around Halloween we�ll know the names of any white women Barack Obama has ever dated� One last �Mandingo� scare before the erect� uh, I mean election. Boo!

Domo arigato, Mrs. Roboto...

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:14:00 +0000

I haven't seen the whole interview, but this exchange reminds me of a scene in the first "Austin Powers" flick when Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley) begins repeating herself in tape recorder fashion and Austin realizes she's a fembot.

But I guess I shouldn't second guess the coaching job the McCain team is doing...

GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?

PALIN: Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don't think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.

GIBSON: So if we wouldn't second guess it and they decided they needed to do it because Iran was an existential threat, we would cooperative or agree with that.

PALIN: I don't think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.

GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right.

PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.

America Crashing Down

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:51:00 +0000

The 2008 Presidential campaign is a perfect illustration of the societal decline we�re gunning down in our Hummer, foot to the floor, toward a thick redwood of national oblivion. Instead of focusing on the war, the deficit, education, healthcare and energy independence, both major parties are stuffing our ignorant faces with a fast-food orgy of bridges to nowhere, Muslim smears, lipstick on pigs on private jets on eBay, and the endless adventures of Reverend Wright. And a sad majority of voters are eating it up like stumbling, drunk teenagers on a midnight run to Taco Bell.

This election is going to be decided on �issues� suited for �Access Hollywood� and supermarket tabloids, not �Meet the Press� and �The New York Times.� I�m really concerned about the country my children and grandchildren are inheriting from their elders. I wonder how they�ll pay a national debt that�s nearly ten trillion dollars, and I worry about them paying for healthcare in a system spending billions marketing boners while driving margin by denying care.

We have been a �guns and butter� economy for a very long time. World War II got us out of the great depression by putting everyone who could work to work either dying or building weapons to perpetuate it. Since Ike�s warning about the perils of the �military-industrial� complex, it has grown into a near indestructible monster, protected by thousands of defense contractor lobbyists. Like any business, growth is key. Beginning seven years ago tomorrow, the neocon Bush administration scared the shit out of us and lied us into war. Should we expect world peace anytime soon? Not as long as profits depend on killing and countries are lined up to buy F-16�s and Patriot missile systems. As of ten seconds ago, the cost of the war in Iraq is $552,996,911,265 and most of it's been borrowed from China, Russia and others. Some estimates calculate the tab will hit $1Trillion dollars before it�s over. Many American corporations are reaping huge profits on this death and destruction. I wonder how much they pay in taxes�

There are voices of reason like former candidate Ron Paul, but instead of reporting the sober reality he speaks, the mainstream media dismisses him as �eccentric� and instead satiates us with �Celebrity Fit Club� chased with a bag of Doritos and a 2-liter Mountain Dew. With more and more of our population uninterested in the civics of our republic, what is the incentive for change?

I�d like to be more optimistic, and echo the flowery lies of candidates telling us about how wonderful we, the American people are, but the reality is they ignore the real issues for salacious sensationalism and half truths and we lick it up along with the cheese from our Doritos. One of these days when we pull our collective heads out of the shiny packaging, we�ll see our country that was once great, is no more.

I think it was Neil Young...

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:14:00 +0000

I'm sitting in a dense "waiting lounge" at the very efficient Acton Toyota Service Department and Neil Young just dropped in. Yeah, evidently he's their car rental shuttle driver. Most people don't recognize him, but I do...

AWOL since August 22 has two explanations... I haven't been inspired to make stuff up and I've been wasting time arguing with the delusional right-wing on a singles message board.

Speaking of the right wing, the RNC has been interesting. And what's up with the term "red meat?" The bloviating heads covering the conventions use it to describe language used by speakers to fire up the crowd. Like when VP nominee Sarah Palin described her job as mayor of Wasilla as "something like a community organizer, except with real responsibilities..." Something like that. Governor Palin is a V-PILF all right, but as shallow as I am, she's not hot enough to get my vote, even with her promise that parents of special needs kids would have a friend in the White House if she and Uncle Fester are elected.

Actually, the more I listen to John McCain and ignore the press filtering of him, the more I think he'd make a good president. Aside from the "war on terror," he doesn't share much policy position with Dubya and Dick. Still, his support of the Iraq war is a biggie. I don't give a shit whether he was right about the "surge." We shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Another big issue for me is taxes. The right hits Obama by saying "he'll raise your taxes." (Btw, that's a tepid scare tactic compared to what we'll hear in the next 60 days...) We either need to raise taxes, cut spending, or both. Dubya lowered taxes and then spent like a "tax and spend liberal," mostly on a destructive war that has enriched his oil constituency by raising the "risk" factor in oil pricing, and corporations like Dick Cheney's Halliburton through their war profiteering. My point is the cynical Republicans cling to their religion and guns and "no new taxes" pledge, but bury our children and later generations with a national deficit approaching ten TRILLION dollars.

Is that what they mean by "Country First?"

Blue Morning, Blue Day.

noreply@blogger.com (fifteenkey) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:57:00 +0000

18-1. There are tee-shirts done in Patriots colors to mock the blemish on my home team�s just-short-of-epic season. Yesterday, baby-bro threw a one on the board and �the streak� is over. Today my ego is bruised and my muscles sore after a miserable 118 from the blue boxes. Yeah, I spent the glorious afternoon flailing aimlessly like a peasant swinging a sickle in an endless field of weeds. Still, I have to credit bro for playing a smart game. While I hack away with the heavy lumber spraying errant orbs every direction but straight, Corey wisely pokes an iron safely into the fairway. The big difference though, is in his putting. The three and four putts are history, and that was always my advantage.

Win or lose, it was a way over par day for golf and a heartwarming experience to see how far my brother has come.